


set this world aflame til it would hear your cries

by hellbeast



Category: Naruto
Genre: Barely Canon Compliant, Gen, Looking Canon Dead In The Eye Before You Murder It, Other, What Even Is Chakra? We Just Don't Know., beings of multiplicities count as relationships okay, the canon monsters aren't monstrous enough so i'm fixing it you're welcome, weird science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 19:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20452544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellbeast/pseuds/hellbeast
Summary: The Juubi dies.





	set this world aflame til it would hear your cries

When Hagoromo splits them up, when he _breaks them apart_—more for his sake, for the humans’ sake, than for their own—the chakra that burns and bubbles and festers and rots until it settles and begins to call itself Matatabi is filled with nothing but betrayal.

It would not ask why, because Hagoromo has made his position clear: he stands with his fellow ningen, and not with what once was the Juubi. He might say that it was for their safety, so that none could misuse their power, but the chakra that becomes Matatabi will never believe him.

It will not forget. It will never forgive.

* * *

Before, the world was simple. The Juubi was, and all was well.

This is before everything: before the ningen, before the spirits and even before the world was finished drawing itself together. Simple.

The Juubi was a creature of both many things and none: many mouths and many eyes and many teeth and many limbs and many thoughts. There was no shape for the Juubi to take, because having a shape meant nothing, and so for a time, the Juubi just _was_, shapeless and limitless and infinite.

But the world became the world, and other things too started to grow. First came the plants, and the flowers and the flowing rivers and the bright sun and the creeping moss. Then came the spirits—the kitsune and the oni, the tengu and the kappa, and all the rest—and the Juubi crafted itself in that multitude of images. And then came the animals, more of flesh than all life before it, and amongst those animals were the ningen.

The ningen are small and all told, inconsequential. They are, to a point, incomprehensible to the Juubi. So ephemeral, so strange, so _small_.

But then, there is Hagoromo.

Hagoromo, who is curious and eager to learn, and who leaves the rest of the ningen and travels amongst the spirits for most of his (negligible) lifespan. Hagoromo, who hunts with the Yama-inu, who spars with the Oni, who bathes with the Kappa.

Hagoromo, who finds the Juubi and begs, “Teach me.”

The Juubi is infinite, limitless, unfathomable. The Juubi is neoteric. Only mortal things deal in absolutes, and the Juubi is both primordial and nascent, all at once. It is soft, eager, unscorned, ancient, bitter.

The Juubi, more the fool, says yes.

* * *

It is hard, teaching Hagoromo. Teaching a mortal creature, of flesh and blood. The Juubi both exists and does not exist at the same time, present but only occasionally tangible. Hagoromo, of course, does not understand why. He thinks the Juubi a kind of spirit, some immense forgotten kami or the like.

The Juubi knows that it exists across multiple dimensions, even if it is only corporeal on some of them. This is because the Juubi is a marvel, and when unfolded to the fullest extent of its being, it is a universe of energy and thought rippling, spread and layered and drawn and condensed, a mere fraction of its attention focused on trying to teach Hagoromo how to harness the energy that can be found within and around all living things.

“How are you doing that?” Hagoromo breathes heavily, chest heaving. The Juubi stretches, crests, slides from one dimension into four. It curls around Hagoromo, manipulating the energy of its surface. Bright light, black as night, hums above its perceived form.

**You ningen are strange creatures,** the Juubi mocks. It mocks in kindness. It sneers in disdain. Only mortal things confine themselves to singularities.

**You must pull only on the topmost layers of energy,** it offers.

“_What_ energy?” Hagoromo’s body all but vibrates with his frustration.

A part of the Juubi sighs. No matter how it explains, still Hagoromo does not grasp the truth. That one must pull on the fabric of the world, of existence. Pull its strings, direct its pattern.

**All things are energy, because the world is energy. You must simply draw your portion into the right tool to change the world around you.**

“You’re manipulating _reality_?”

What is reality? Is it not merely what is experienced? There is no fundamental truth being changed, merely a shift in perspective. Honestly. _Mortals._

**It is no difficult feat**, the Juubi admonishes. **You must surely feel the weave of your own self and the barrier between it and all else.**

“Well,” Hagoromo hems. “Yes, I know what _I_ am—”

**And so you must see that this boundary is an illusion.**

“… What?”

**Suckle energy from the teat of reality. Do not all infants have this instinct? Hold your own energy in time with all that is, and shape the world around you to your wish.**

Hagoromo, in the end, does not. He manages to move his energy, but he cannot make it touch the world.

Instead, he tears a part of himself _off_, tears it _away_ and molds that instead.

_**Fool!**_ Juubi snarls, as Hagoromo expels a mouthful of his own energy, his own self, as a gout of flame.

“It worked!” Hagoromo is an idealistic man, but not an emotive one. Even so, there is satisfaction on his face.

**It did _not_**, the Juubi yowls, annoyed. Already, the world is trying to repair the hole within one of its parts, suffusing Hagoromo’s body with more energy until he is once again whole.

The Juubi is a being of energy, of power. It is no fleeting mortal thing, and so it has learned, how to fold itself and how to expand. How to manipulate the power around it without compromising the power that it is.

Hagoromo has not done this thing. What Hagoromo has done, if it came to be known, is a bizarre thing. A sacrosanct thing. All creatures—the oni, the sarugami, the furaribi—know how to twist reality just so, how to extend to their fullest selves (though none are so extensive as the Juubi, of course).

Hagoromo has warped and pulled himself. This is strange enough. But the world is one tapestry, all creatures merely patterns. When Hagoromo tears himself apart, the world fills in those gaps. From its own reserves. Pull a thread from the edge to repair the middle.

To the world, all of creation and reality, Hagoromo is but a drop. A mere handful of stitches.

But a hundred Hagoromos? A _million_? Ripping themselves apart, flinging energy into dimensions they cannot even perceive, disparate particles colliding, all while the world rushes to mend the tapestry of itself?

The Juubi does not consider it, then. Hagoromo still does not know, cannot comprehend the enormity of what he has done.

What he _will_ do, when he passes this knowledge on.

When a being loses all of its energy, it ceases to exist. All that is left is matter, which rots and crumbles and falls away. An abura-sumashi with no energy is merely a mountain. An inugami with no energy becomes a mere storm cloud.

But a _world_ with no energy—?

Well.

* * *

Hagoromo never does learn to shape the world in the way that all other creatures do. In the way that is _safe_.

A metaphor, Kurama will call it, some millenia later and with bitter grace.

* * *

Hagoromo breaks them apart.

(Hagoromo breaks their heart.)

* * *

There is pain. For a long while, there is _nothing_ but pain. Hagoromo dies, of course, for no mortal being can disseminate so much raw power and avoid the backlash. Parts of the Juubi are glad, vicious and hurting, for this death. Other parts are less so. There is still a love for Hagoromo there, because even in pieces the Juubi is multitudes, but far more pragmatically, Hagoromo’s death means the man cannot undo his dying action.

The Juubi breaks, and breaks, and _breaks_.

The world breaks around them, but energy cannot be created nor destroyed. The world heals. The world moves on.

The Juubi dies.

**Author's Note:**

> here it is: that one bijuu fic! [check out the tag here](https://manymouths.tumblr.com/tagged/that-one-bijuu-fic), cuz this one has a lot of weird hard science scifi in it
> 
> as always, [hmu on tumblr](https://manymouths.tumblr.com)


End file.
